


A Nurse, Stripper Barbie & A Bottle of Jack

by Dogsled



Series: Season 13 Codas [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Coda, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Deleted Scenes, Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Sexual Identity, Spoilers, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 14:44:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12683988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: Spoliers - a coda for 13x05 - Advanced ThanatologyDean's perspective during a "deleted scene" with bonus Christmas Sammy. Implied unrequited Destiel.





	A Nurse, Stripper Barbie & A Bottle of Jack

**Author's Note:**

> The suicidal thoughts tag is inverted in the story. Dean considers how he thinks about it then moves on within the space of a line, so please don't fret about it!

This place was nicer than the usual kind of dive they stayed in. Sammy pulling out all the stops, no doubt; a hotel with twin beds and regular manual doors dressed up as something flashier, as though to show just how pointless a facade was when it was all a goddamn lie. It was a joke, really, his brother trying his best to make him feel good, stretching the limits of Dean’s ability to cope with any of it.

 

This wasn’t how he usually dealt with grief. He needed space. He needed to be alone. Maybe right now it didn’t feel like he’d ever be _better_ , but when did it ever?

 

But this was different. Dean knew it. Nothing he did seemed to work. No amount of beer or junk food or _time_ was getting Dean any closer to a feeling that soon the grief might come to an end. It felt neverending.

 

Maybe it was his fault. He hadn’t even named it. He’d avoiding speaking it out loud for fear of making the feelings true. Every time he mentioned Cas it came on the back of something else, but it was what went unspoken which was tearing him up the most.

 

And Sam should know. Of anyone Sam should know. Dean kept expecting Sam to ask him, kept expecting Sam to make him confront it, because if Sam told him he loved Cas then Dean wouldn’t have to be the one to admit it; wouldn’t have to admit out loud that maybe he was into guys as well as girls.

 

God, he was so ashamed. But what was the point now? Cas was gone, and with him went any hope of Dean exploring that side of himself. Would he tell Castiel that he loved him if he saw him now? Would he be too ashamed, still, even in the face of death and parting?

 

It didn’t matter. Cas was never coming back. And part of Dean, the part he’d always hidden away, the part of him that was really the _all_ of him…it went away too.

 

Dean could never be himself, and now Cas was gone why would he ever want to be? The world was empty and pointless without him.

 

In the bed opposite Sam snored loudly. Dean turned his attention away from the boring ass ceiling to look at his brother. Sam was trying so hard, damn him. He always tried so hard, and Dean knew he was only bringing him down. Maybe if Dean wasn’t in the picture Sam would have saved Mom already. That was what he and that shapeshifter Mia thought, wasn’t it? Dean was poison. He’d always been poison…

 

Poison that wasn’t getting a damn lick of sleep.

 

Dean sighed, sitting up, leaning across to dig in his bag. No extra bottle of Jack Daniels. Nothing in his flask – he’d already emptied it. Short of stabbing himself with the shot in his hunting bag, he had nothing on him that could possibly put him to sleep, quieten the thoughts in his head, or the last image he’d had of Castiel’s blue eyes before his grace burned the life out of them.

 

Sometimes when people experienced trauma they couldn’t put it out of their minds. Dean was like that, and he’d seen a lot of traumatic things. God only knew how many times he’d drawn Mary on fire as a child. John had been so traumatized by them in turn that making sure Dean didn’t have access to crayons was one of the few priorities he had in life.

 

He’d never really bothered learning to draw after that.

 

Sam snored and rolled over, exposing a slither of his spine as his t-shirt rolled up. Dean frowned at it. What was it Sam had suggested earlier? A strip club? Not perfect, but at least they sold alcohol. Better than lying here staring into oblivion stone cold sober.

 

He rolled out of bed, still fully dressed, and crept out.

 

 

\-----

 

 

This was the worst Christmas _ever_.

 

Sam scowled, staring at the back of his brother’s shoes as they made their way into the strip joint. He kicked at the step as they went in, but almost ended up tripping over his own feet instead. It was anything but smooth.

 

“What’s wrong, Sam? How old are you, exactly? C’mon. Live a little.”

 

Sam glowered. To think he’d let Dean drag him away from face time with Eileen for this. He was – he thought – doing pretty decently at getting to know her, a real woman, but Dean wasn’t thinking about any of that. He cared, Sam knew, even ribbed him about it sometimes, but… Well, Dean was Dean. This was how he liked to have fun.

 

Not just the naked chicks part, oh no, but certainly the part where he got to watch Sam squirm as well. Sam expected it. Christmas or not, he knew his brother, and he could already tell that this was going to be some fresh kind of hell.

 

He wasn’t disappointed.

 

Her name was Yasmine--until it wasn’t. At about the one minute mark she admitted that in fact her name was Annabella-Louise. When Sam asked her why she’d chosen stripping, Dean admonished him, but Annabella-Louise smiled and said that she got that question all the time, before telling the sad story of how she’d dropped out of nursing school because it was too expensive to rent near the university.

 

Sam, bleeding heart that he was, spent the rest of the dance giving her ideas about where she could find a roommate, and not to give up on her dream when she was only a few credits away.

 

Well, it wasn’t like she was the only one who’d given up on her academic dream, was it?

 

Sam was barely even flustered by the time the dance was over, and Dean rolled his eyes.

 

“You really ruined that for me, man, you know that?”

 

“Ruined it _for you_?”

 

“Yeah. What a waste of thirty bucks. You _suck_ , Sammy.”

 

 

\-----

 

 

It was already late when Dean got to the club. Fortunately he made it just in time for happy hour, and arranged half a dozen half price drinks in front of him like a chorus line.

 

Half an hour later, the chorus line was a duet, and Dean was finally starting to feel numb enough to deal. He folded his arms on the bar and dropped his chin on top of them, staring at his empties, barely noticing as a woman swayed up to the bar to join him.

 

“Just a water, sugah.”

 

A hand fell on his shoulder, slight and feminine.

 

“You okay, darlin’? Hey…”

 

Dean lifted his head slowly, blinking up into the glittery blue eyeshadow of the woman who’d joined him. She was one of the dancers, no doubt, dressed in star spangled pink, white and red like Stripper Barbie. Her blonde hair was chalked with pink as well, and thrown back in tousled curls away from her face.

 

She was gorgeous. Dean just wished he was even vaguely interested. Right now the hurt in his chest, though dulled, was almost all he could comprehend.

 

“You hurtin’?”

 

“How can you tell?”

 

“Oh sugar, _I can tell_. You don’t do this job for long before you figure out how to tell if a guy’s hurtin’.”

 

Dean rubbed his mouth on his arm. “Sounds like psychic mojo to me.”

 

“Last thing anyone wants to be around here is psychic. But hey—“ she stroked his shoulder firmly. “Point is I can help with that.”

 

“ _You think_.”

 

Stripper Barbie sighed. “Your hurt goes pretty deep, don’t it?”

 

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Dean answered, dryly.

 

“Doesn’t matter. I can take the edge off. C’mon. I’m on next. You can sit up front.”

 

Dean sighed, waving his hand, but the woman caught it, smiling, and tugged him to his feet. Dean cooperated miserably, following as she led him across the room.

 

When he dropped into the seat beside the stage, his two remaining beers miraculously reappeared in front of him.

 

“It’s Toni, by the way.”

 

“Tony’s a boy’s name.”

 

“Yeah, but it’s better than ‘Stripper Barbie’.”

 

Jesus, had he said that out loud? He didn’t remember speaking.

 

Toni-not-a-boy’s-name reappeared on stage to “American Woman” and the other patrons screeched and yelled as she strutted her stuff. Dean sat quiet, sedate, watching, and smiled when her attention unerringly came back in his direction.

 

She was gorgeous, but his heart was still broken. There was no getting away how empty he felt inside, and at this point Dean knew better that sex wasn't the answer. Sex wasn't going to fill this hole--maybe ever again.

 

Even death had to be better than this emptiness. If it came, he wouldn’t fight, but damn it, he wasn’t suicidal. _He wasn’t_. That implied he wanted to end himself, and Dean still strongly believed that wasn’t an option.

 

In the line of duty, though?

 

In the line of duty. That was the noble sacrifice. The only thing he knew.

 

Toni crouched down in front of him, wrapping her bra around his neck like a collar. She was right in his face for a moment, her breasts inches from his nose, but Dean watched only her blue eyes and felt sadder still, emptier still.

 

This had been a mistake. He’d always known it was a mistake, but now it just felt even more like one. It was too late to get away from it now, though. A group of four men at the nearest table who’d been hooting at Toni gravitated toward him when the dance ended. They had their work ties bound around their heads like they were all badly cosplaying the Karate Kid, but Dean discovered swiftly enough that they were guys who had ditched their high school reunion because it was too boring. After claiming to recognize him from their school days, they threw their arms around his shoulders and celebrated him as their hero.

 

Dean snapped his guard up, felt the façade of boisterous masculinity slot into place in order to survive in the wild. At some point he managed to pretend that he was having fun, even as Toni – in her new dominatrix outfit – writhed all over him in a dance paid for him by his new ‘friends’.

 

God knew when he drove home he was far from in his right mind, and the underground parking at the hotel almost put Dean and Baby out of their misery once and for all.

 

Thank God for valet parking. Thank God for Sam sleeping like the dead once in a while. Thank God for the bottle of Jack that Sam had hidden in his bag, presumably intending it as some kind of well-meaning gift to indulge his alcoholic brother.

 

And all along Dean knew - _he knew_ \- that he couldn't carry on like this. Their Dad had, and look what it had done to them--look what it had done to  _him_. Just like it had taken dying for John to tell him that he was proud, Dean couldn't speak about his feelings either.

 

Not while it still mattered.

 

Not to the person who needed to hear it.

 

What a fucking joke.


End file.
